When good haircuts go bad

I am such a sucker for vouchers or discounts of any kind.  But today I got stung.  Badly.

So I have about 3 haircuts a year and I have a fabulous hairdresser who I've been seeing for yonks.  But the other day in the local newspaper there was a 20% discount voucher for another salon AND $150 worth of free stuff.
I should have listened to the warning bells when I rang and they booked me into a colour consultant AND a stylist (senior or normal with different prices).  I arrived and a docket kind of thing was placed in front of me with all the different services on offer which my colour consultant and stylist would fill in with the prices.  o...k....

So all was ticking along nicely until my colour consultant banged down the price AFTER she'd put the colour on.  Jay-sus!!!!  O...k.., I deducted the 20%, gulped and thought ...I can live with that, I have no choice now.  But then time started dragging.  My "stylist" had a school ball "up do" to do before she attacked my expensively coloured hair.  It looked very intricate from the ripped out magazine picture the 16 year old was clutching.  And time consuming.  More mental arithmatic....school pick up time was looming, and a pair of scissors hadn't been near my hair.  I looked a little sulky I'm guessing, and my "hair cleansist" (my word) went and asked my stylist when I was on.  At least another 30 minutes was her reply.  45 minutes later, I complained.  (which actually is a world record for me to have waited this long).  I noticed a woman across from me drinking champagne.  Gawd, I'd have killed for one, but I was obviously a "coffee or water" grade client.

"Can you please find someone else to cut my hair, I need to leave in 20 minutes and I was hoping to have it dried as well".  Enough.  They scrambled and I ended up with the salon owner.  And a lovely haircut and colour.

I'd already prepared myself for the price so I smiled serenely as I handed over the credit card.  And waited expectedly for my $150 bag of  free loot.  You'd think I would have learnt by now...my free stuff only consisted of discounts on future visits (which must be within 7 weeks of initial appointment).  Of course!  "Lovely, thank you, that's awesome", I lied, as I walked out of the salon, knowing I'd never be back, and into the first spits of rain.

So the school yard comments about how nice my hair looked were bitter sweet, shame it will be back to it's normal dried up old birdnest look tomorrow.